It's Elementary, My Dear Watson
by Hana Rose
Summary: John Watson wasn't sure what to expect from kindergarden, but this certainly was not it. After finding friendship with Sherlock Holmes he may begin to see the world a little differently.
1. Chapter 1

John looked out the window at the red brick school building as his mother pulled into the parking spot. He had always enjoyed accompanying his mother to drop off his older sister Harriet at her previous schools, but knowing that it was his turn to be dropped off made it feel a bit different. He wouldn't say he was afraid, John considered himself to be quite adventurous actually. He and his sister had already visited the exotic regions of the Amazon, the wild outback of Australia, and even the frigid mountains of the Alps all at the tender age of five and seven. Of course it was all in their imagination. One day he planned to actually see those sites, but before he could begin planning his world travels he would have to attend school.

Once the car had stopped moving, Harriet lost no time in unbuckling her seatbelt and throwing open the door. She rushed out of the car, bolting toward the school building. She did not want anyone to mistake her mother's concern over her little brother's first day of school as being for her. She had had several first days at several different schools with her father being in the military, so she knew first impressions were everything.

"You forgot you're lunch, Harriet!" Mrs. Watson called after her, getting out of the car.

Harriet turned around, face red. "Mum, it's Harry!" She wanted her new classmates to be calling her by her proper name, the one she chose for herself.

"Of course it is darling," she said absent mindedly as she handed her her lunch. She had grown used to the corrections, although she wouldn't budge on calling her by her full name. Before Harriet could run away, Mrs. Watson kissed her on her forehead and wished her a good day at school. Harriet turned around quickly and rushed away.

"Well then, you aren't going to run away from me, are you?" Mrs. Watson asked John, opening his car door.

He shook his head, and unbuckled his seat. John resisted any help his mother offered. Although it had taken awhile to get used to unbuckling himself from his car seat with his arm in an orange cast, it was much easier to perform the task than it had been when he wore a sling.

While Harriet and John had been playing in the park a few weeks back Harry spotted a wild polar bear. She pushed John down a slide headfirst, claiming later it was to save him, and didn't think twice about it until she called after him and he didn't answer. The injury had taken place before they moved, but it would still be a few days before the doctor could take off the cast.

His mother closed the door behind John and grabbed his bag.

"I can carry it," He said. He was trying to replicate the way he had heard his father speak to his fellow officers.

"I think I will do it today. And then everyday after you get to carry it."

John was too nervous to pretend to be angry with his mother for not letting him do it by himself. And besides, Harry wasn't around to tease him for it. One day of his mother carrying his bag wouldn't hurt him much.

It didn't take them long to find his classroom; it was very close to the entrance of the school. John walked slowly, trying to make sure he could remember the way there. He knew it wasn't a long way, but he didn't want to risk being lost in the future. His mother wouldn't walk him to class every day, and Harry refused to.

When John entered the classroom, he was taken aback. He wasn't sure what to expect, but it most certainly wasn't this. The walls were decorated with paper cut outs of various flowers and insects. Harriet would have most certainly not approved. Facing a chalkboard were five rows of desks, each with rounded corners and two seats. In the corner was what appeared to be a library, but it didn't look anything like the library he had at home. His family had a whole room of leather bound books, covering every subject John could imagine. These books seemed to be more of the animal variety. They were far too colorful and far too thin. The books his teacher had assembled were neatly placed in the shelves, but they were all facing outward with their cover toward the reader. John had a few books like that in his room, but he preferred stealing his sister's books.

John looked up at his mother. "Is this it?"

She nodded, and the teacher walked over to them.

"I'm Mrs. Anderson. Who do we have here?" she asked, her voice overly cheery for a Monday morning. She was a short woman, or so John thought considering how much smaller she was than his mother. Her long grey hair was a curly mess, similar to what Harry's hair looked like in the morning before Mrs. Watson dragged her upstairs to brush it.

"This is my son John," Mrs. Watson said.

"Hello John! And welcome to my class! Why don't you take a seat next to Molly over there, right where it says your name, and wait for us to start. If you want you can grab a book from the shelf. You can look at the pictures!"

John walked into the library and looked around. Nothing looked particularly interesting, but he didn't want to offend the teacher. He ended up picking up a book with a lion on the cover. He walked over to where the teacher had pointed and sat down. His mum had already placed his bag by his seat.

"It's best for you to sneak out now," Mrs. Anderson whispered. "He won't even notice you're gone."

"No, that won't be necessary," Mrs. Watson replied. "John! I'm leaving."

John walked over to her and gave her a hug. "Bye, mum."

"Bye, have a good day."

John nodded and hugged her once more before returning to his seat for good.

"He's a well behaved boy."

"Takes after his father." With that, she turned and left.

John went back to his book, but he was too shaky to try and read the words. He began to flip through the pictures instead. His father had made sure he learned how to read before school started, but it still required a lot of concentration.

"Was that your mum?" asked the girl sitting next to him.

John nodded.

"She is very pretty."

John nodded again.

"My name is Molly."

"My name is John."

There was a silence for a bit. John looked over Molly's shoulder to see what she was looking at. She had picked out a book about a white cat that appeared to be named Connie Prince.

"Do you like cats?" He finally asked, thinking of nothing better to say.

Molly looked up at him and smiled. "Yes, I have a cat named Toby."

"Does he look like that cat?"

"No, he's grey. Do you have a cat?"

"I don't have any pets."

"I'm sorry. I love my kitty. She sleeps on my bed."

"I once went to the zoo and saw a lion."

"I love going to the zoo. Were they scary?"

"No, but they were really big. They slept for most of the time."

Molly nodded and continued flipping through her book.

John began to look around. Most of his classmates had found their seats already and the last groups of parents were saying goodbye to their children. Finally class was going to start.

As the final parent left, Mrs. Anderson shut the door behind them. She walked to the front of the class and introduced herself again.

"Hello class, I'm Mrs. Anderson, and I'm going to be your teacher this year. I know we are going to have a lot of fun. Today we will try to get to know each other better…"

A tall boy at the back of the class raised his hand. He did not wait for the teacher to call on him before asking, "When do we cover anatomy?"

Mrs. Anderson cleared her throat. "Excuse me?"

"My brother Mycroft told me I won't learn anatomy this year, but I told him that he was wrong."

"You are Mycroft's brother?" the teacher asked, still confused as to how to answer the original question.

"I just told you he was my brother. Therefore, I am his brother," he explained.

"Of course you are. Well I'm sorry to tell you that I think you're brother was right. We won't be able to cover anatomy this year, but we will learn about lots of other things, like butterflies. Does anyone here like butterflies?"

John watched the boy to see how we would react. He didn't think there was anything particularly wrong with what the teacher said, but he was certain that that wasn't the answer the boy had been looking for.

Halfway through the teachers description of the butterfly she saw on her way to school, the tall boy stood up and walked over to one of the large beanie bags in the library and plopped himself down, his back facing the teacher and the rest of the class. The teacher began paying attention to him again.

"Excuse me, would you mind returning to your seat?"

"Yes."

"Please return to your seat."

"I'm fine over here."

"Go back to your seat!"

Sherlock turned his head so he could see the teacher. He looked at her for a long time, in which her face turned a bright cherry and John swore he could see her hair curl before his eyes, then stood up and made his way back to his desk.

"What is your name?"

"You can read it on my name card. Didn't you write it? I suppose it would help if you were wearing your glasses, but you left them at home again…"

"Tell me your name!"

"Sherlock Holmes."

"I would prefer, Mr. Holmes, if you sat at the front of the class from now on. Molly, would you mind grabbing your things and moving to the back? Sherlock, you can sit next to John."

Molly blushed as she gathered her things and moved to the back of the classroom, but the tall boy was unfazed.

The teacher began her introduction yet again, but John couldn't concentrate any more. He had never seen anyone disregard an authority figure in such a manner. His sister wasn't the most well behaved child, but she still managed to scrape out a little respect for the adults she felt were important enough. On the other hand, this boy didn't seem to want to make the effort.

Before long the teacher wrapped up her lecture and passed out coloring sheets to the class. She was going off on saying something about talking to their neighbors while they used them, that way they could all make friends. Once everyone had a sheet she began migrating between tables to observe their work, helping to start conversations when she could. She started in the back of the room and made her way forward. John watched her for a minute, then turned to his own coloring sheet. He had been given a picture of a hedgehog. He felt he was getting tired of the animal theme.

He reached into his backpack to try to find his crayons. There were only a handful of items, making it seem like an easy task, but the arm in his cast somehow got stuck on a spiral notebook and needed untangling. The teacher ran over at once to help him.

After he had been settled in, he opened the box of crayons he had been handed down from his sister last year. Pouring them out on the table, he found each had been crammed in the box after being thoroughly smashed. His sister Harry wasn't what anyone would describe as delicate, in fact she was quite the opposite, however she had claimed she hadn't used the crayons once since their purchase. John's mother gave them to him so they wouldn't go to waste. John suspected his sister wasn't being truthful. He turned to the boy sitting next to him.

"Would you mind if I borrow some of your crayons?" John asked shyly. He wasn't used to talking to other children, besides Harriet.

"Your brother's don't seem to be working well for you. Maybe if he had used them more than once and not allowed them to sit in his backpack for all of last year they would be in better condition. It doesn't help that he has a sugar problem either."

"How did you…?" John stammered, but the boy, Sherlock, he recalled, only pushed his newly purchased box of crayons toward him.

"They are all yours. I find coloring a waste of time." With that the boy sat back in his chair, and began looking around the room.

John was taken aback. He wasn't quite sure what to say, so he picked out a brown crayon and began coloring in his picture. As he scribbled, staying neatly between the lines, he felt the silence grow between them.

"What is anatomy?" he finally decided to ask.

Sherlock lifted a curious eye toward him. "Anatomy is the study of the human body."

"Is that what doctors study?"

"Yes, along with medicine."

"I want to be a doctor. Do you want to be a doctor?"

"I want to be a Investigator. Or a pirate." Sherlock added, tuning out of the conversation.

John had been trying to replicate the easy chatter he had had with Molly, but obviously it wasn't working. John changed tactics.

"Is that how you knew about the crayons? Are you practicing to be an investigator?" Sherlock perked up again.

Mrs. Anderson chose that moment to walk up behind him. "Why don't you color your otter, Sherlock?"

Sherlock didn't even turn to face her. John was noticing a pattern with him. "There is no point to coloring."

"Nonsense. Now pick up some crayons…"

"I would rather not."

"Sherlock, am I going to have to phone your mother? This is the second time…"

"You should. Or you could go get my brother. You had him a few years ago, correct? He is just down the hall."

"You know what, I will let you not color for now, but please make sure to pay attention the rest of the day. Do you understand? John, that is a beautiful picture!" With that she began circulating the room once more, this time making sure to skip over Sherlock's table.

"My name is John, by the way."

"Obviously."

"What?"

"The teacher just said your name."

"I just wanted you to hear it from me."

"Why?" Sherlock was now facing him.

"That's how you introduce yourself."

"So you have to wait for someone to tell you their name to use it?"

"Not really, but it's what people do."

"It seems boring to me. Was it head first?"

"Hmm?"

"Did you go down head first? Down the slide?"

"What slide?"

"The one you were pushed down. Probably your brother if I had to guess"

"How did you know I was pushed down a slide?"

"It's true though?"

"Yes."

Sherlock responded with a smirk. John had spent so much time playing with Harriet (or being dragged around by her), he was beginning to feel she hadn't filled him in on what school was really like, or what other boys were like. Harry made herself out to be a bit of a tomboy, but that didn't seem enough to prepare John. He was now blushing.

"Is something wrong?"

"No." John didn't want to let him know he was embarrassed. Harry _had_ taught him what happens then.

"Did I do it again? Mycroft says I make people feel uncomfortable."

"No. I just… really like hedgehogs."

Mrs. Anderson decided that they had all had enough of coloring for the moment. "Please keep your pictures on your desk, we will come back to them later. Now we are going to read a story."

"I can explain," Sherlock whispered. "If you want."

"Later," he said back and began putting the crayons back into the box. He might as well learn something if he was at school. He handed the box back to Sherlock, but he shook his head and refused to take them back. John instead put them at the top corner of his desk.

**Thanks for reading! This is my first fanfic so be sure to review and tell me what you think! **

**-Hana Rose**


	2. Chapter 2

"How did you do it?" John asked as he opened his lunch. He pulled out the sandwich his mother made for him the night before. "How did you know about Harry?"

"Harry's name was on the crayons," Sherlock responded simply.

"But you knew more than that. You knew that Harry never used them."

"Well, the box looked like they had only been opened a few times but the crayons were crumbled. But none of them looked used either. They must have fallen out of the box, been crushed in a back pack, and then stuffed back inside."

John reflected on the observations. They seemed to make sense now, but John didn't think he would be able to notice them by himself. "And what was it you said about sugar?"

"There was a brown stain on the box, and when you opened it a piece of a candy wrapper came out. Your brother must have been trying to hide the candy in his book bag with the crayons. He probably is not allowed to eat it. He was able to throw away most of the wrapper, but not all of it."

"Why do you keep calling Harry my brother?"

"Isn't he your brother?"

"No, she's my sister."

"Oh." Sherlock's mood changed.

"What?"

"There is always something."

"Well you got almost everything else right."

"But Mycroft says that if I don't do any better I won't be able to be an inspector."

"You could be a pirate," John offered.

Sherlock looked down at the grey-speckled lunch table.

"You got the part about the slide right."

"I did?"

"Yeah. Harry pushed me down head first this summer."

Sherlock smiled. John took a bite of his sandwich. They were sitting alone in the cafeteria. Fifth graders sat on the far end next to the window, second graders in the middle, and all of the kindergarteners sat close to the door. Almost every seat was taken except for the ones around the two. The other children were trying to avoid Sherlock after the incident in the morning.

"Aren't you going to eat anything?" A small voice came from behind John. He turned around to see Molly staring at Sherlock.

Sherlock checked behind him to make sure she was talking to him. Once he was quite sure, he responded, "I'm not hungry."

"My mum says that if you skip a meal you could faint," she said. "You can have some of my lunch."

Molly walked around the table and sat down next to Sherlock. She began taking her lunch out of its bag. "I have a sandwich, some crisps, and an apple." She began dividing it evenly between the two of them. "My name is Molly."

Sherlock was about to say something, but John just gave him a look and he remembered their discussion earlier that day.

"I'm Sherlock." There was something slightly unnatural in the way he said it.

"You know the boys over there were saying things about you that weren't very nice, but I told them to be quiet."

"What did they say?" asked John.

"That you're full of yourself. They think you think you're smart."

"I am smart."

"But they think you think you're smarter than you are."

"I don't see how it is important."

"They probably can't even tie their own shoes." John added.

Sherlock looked at John for a second before hiding his own untied laces under his seat.

"I know you weren't trying to be mean to Mrs. Anderson," Molly said, eating her lunch in an orderly fashion and not checking to see that Sherlock hadn't touched any of the food. "You just didn't know you were being mean."

"She started it."

Molly began talking about how it was wrong to point fingers, and then began telling the story of her favorite cat. Sherlock began looking everywhere but at Molly, not even bothering to feign interest. John tried to nod occasionally, but found it was tedious. By the time Mrs. Anderson came out to announce it was time for recess John wasn't sure he could hear any more of the story.

The children got in a single file line. Sherlock and John were pushed to the back, and Molly followed them there. As they left the cafeteria, the third grade class entered the cafeteria. The round third grader at the front of the line pointed at Sherlock and whispered something to the person behind him. His school uniform was pristine, in contrast to almost every other child John had seen so far that day. Sherlock ignored him as they shuffled past. John was just able to spot Harry. He tried to wave, before remerging that Harry told him not to talk to her at school.

When they reached the playground the children immediately dispersed. Even Molly ran off to join some of the other girls. Sherlock wandered off to sit on a bench on the other side of the playground, well out of the teacher's sight. John followed him.

"Don't you want to play on the swings?" John asked.

"No."

"We could be pirates," John suggested.

"There aren't any boats."

"We could be inspectors."

"What would we investigate?"

"Molly said she lost her pencil."

"Boring."

John sat down next to him and began spitting out ideas, each of which were shot down.

"What if the prime minister…"

"Why would the prime minister be at our school?"

A large boy walked up to the bench. He was about Sherlock's height, but also twice as thick. Behind him stood all of the other boys in the class. They remained a few feet away though, in a semi-circle. The boy walked right up to Sherlock.

"Why are you all alone?"

"I'm not alone. You came over here," Sherlock answered.

"And I've been here," John added.

"But why aren't you playing?" He asked.

"I don't play," Sherlock said.

"Jim says I could fight you. He says you may be smart, but he thinks I can fight you."

John looked at Sherlock. He seemed as if he was finally interested. He got off the bench.

"Sherlock." He ignored John.

"Why do you want to fight?" John asked.

"He's bigger than all of the other boys," Sherlock answered, "except me. And I insulted his mother."

Anderson turned red and stepped forward. Sherlock didn't flinch.

"How did you…?" John stammered.

"Name was on the desk. And Mrs. Anderson stopped at his desk longer than all of the others."

By this time the girls had noticed something was happening and had made there way over. Molly stood in the back, jumping to try and see over the other girls' shoulders.

"What's going on?" A girl, Sally, asked rather loudly.

"Anderson wants to start a fight," replied one of the boys.

"Sherlock, don't do it!" Molly finally pushed her way to the front.

"He isn't going to," John assured her.

"Why not?" asked Anderson.

"Because he would win."

"Please, stay out of trouble." Molly looked nervous.

Sherlock turned toward her and opened his mouth to say something, but before he could Anderson's fist swung around and landed a sloppy blow to the back of Sherlock's head.

**Sorry about the long time it took to update, but thanks for reading! Be sure to review, and I hope to have the next chapter really soon.**


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